How long did the Etapalli fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2026 and 29 March 2026: 10 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,599 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Etapalli (5,626 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of India (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

IN · India · 2026-03-20 → 2026-03-29

Etapalli fire, March 2026 Etapalli

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2026, 07:53 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2026 in Etapalli, India, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,599 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Mahārāshtra since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 53 in India in 2026, of 65.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 5,599ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 20 Mar 2026 – 29 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; subdistricts
Started on: 20 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 128; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 433MW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar29 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627282930

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

41°high

37km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,051 ha in 2016, 1,853 ha in 2017, 2,811 ha in 2018, 3,184 ha in 2019, 1,077 ha in 2021, 1,860 ha in 2022, 661 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,197 ha that had burned before.

4,051 ha Etapalli fire, March 2016 7,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Etapalli where it started

5,626 ha reached on 19 Mar

2.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
19 Mar	33.6 °C	33 %	29 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 14
20 Mar	33.1 °C	36 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 19
21 Mar	32.7 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
22 Mar	35.2 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Mar	37.2 °C	17 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Mar	36.1 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
25 Mar	37.9 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 Mar	38.1 °C	30 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
27 Mar	39.3 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
28 Mar	39.5 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
29 Mar	40.6 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Mar after	39.9 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
31 Mar after	35.8 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
1 Apr after	38.1 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
2 Apr after	35.9 °C	35 %	33 km/h	1.2 mm	High 25
3 Apr after	38.5 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Apr after	37.0 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
5 Apr after	36.5 °C	35 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
6 Apr after	37.3 °C	27 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Apr after	38.3 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Apr after	38.9 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Apr after	38.9 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Apr after	39.9 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
11 Apr after	40.7 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
12 Apr after	41.7 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Apr after	40.8 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 13 Mar 2026

After · 5 Apr 2026

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10107 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930311

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 128Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in India ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Etapalli fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2026 and 29 March 2026: 10 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,599 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Etapalli (5,626 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of India (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned